The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers

The Lonely Hunter is widely accepted as the standard biography of Carson McCullers. Author of such landmarks of modern American fiction as Reflections in a Golden Eye and The Ballad of the Sad Café, Carson McCullers was the enfant terrible of the literary world of the 1940s and 1950s. Gifted but tormented, vulnerable but exploitative, McCullers led a life that had all the elements--and more--of a tragic novel.

From McCullers's birth in Columbus, Georgia, in 1917 to her death in upstate New York in 1967, The Lonely Hunter thoroughly covers every significant event in, and aspect of, the writer's life: her rise as a young literary sensation; her emotional, artistic, and sexual eccentricities and entanglements; her debilitating illnesses; her travels in America and Europe; and the provenance of her works from their earliest drafts through their book, stage, and film versions.

To research her subject, Virginia Spencer Carr visited all of the important places in McCullers's life, read virtually everything written by or about her, and interviewed hundreds of McCullers's relatives, friends, and enemies. The result is an enduring, distinguished portrait of a brilliant, but deeply troubled, writer.

The lonely hunter: a biography of Carson McCullers

User Review - Not Available - Book Verdict

"This is likely to become the definitive biography of McCullers," predicted LJ's reviewer. McCuller's life and work are unraveled here in excruciating detail, from her childhood and rise in the ...Read full review

Review: The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers

User Review - Grace K - Goodreads

A super-sensationalist pot-boiler '70s biography. Way better than the more intellectually mature bio by Joysanne Savigneau; Virgina Spenser Carr seemed to believe everything anyone ever told her about Carson McCullers - from sherry-tea swilling to whorehouse living - making for a much better read.Read full review

References to this book

About the author (2003)

Virginia Spencer Carr holds the John B. and Elena Diaz-Verson Amos Distinguished Chair in English at Georgia State University. Her books include Understanding Carson McCullers, Dos Passos: A Life, and a biography of Paul Bowles.